As fans mourn, investors ponder Apple after Jobs

By Andy Goldberg Oct 7, 2011, 9:25 GMT

San Francisco - Apple fans paid tribute Thursday to the unrivalled influence of Steve Jobs on their lives, but investors indicated that Apple would manage fine without him.

The high-flying share price of the world's most valuable technology company closed virtually unchanged at the end of trading Thursday, after swinging up and down through the day as investors and analysts pondered the effect of Jobs' death on the company he co-founded and guided to success.

Jobs had resigned as CEO in August, citing the medical conditions that eventually led to his passing on Wednesday. He handed the reins to Tim Cook, who had run Apple during Jobs' protracted medical leaves, but remained with the company as executive chairman, where he was expected to play a vital role in determining future strategy.

Apple's shares opened Thursday's trading in New York down some 1.4 per cent, before swinging up 1.5 per cent rise and then dropping back down 0.6 per cent in mid-afternoon. They eventually closed down just 0.36 per cent giving the company a value of some 347.3 billion dollars.

Analysts expected Jobs' death to have a short-term impact on the stock, and said that he had put in place an executive team and long- term strategy that included strong growth in China. Those moves should enable Apple to keep delivering the stellar financial results under its iconic co-founder leadership since 2001, they said.

'While Mr Jobs's passion, creativity and keen eye for consumer preference will be missed, we believe Jobs and Apple's executive team have built an unparalleled talent base and corporate culture that sets the table for future success and innovation,' wrote analyst Mike Walkley of Canaccord Adams.

Analyst Ittai Kidron of Oppenheimer & Co was less upbeat in his message to clients: 'While expectations for Mr Jobs's involvement as chairman were likely small given his health problems, he was still potentially available as an adviser and leader in the background,' he wrote.

'This intangible is no longer available, and we expect it will weigh on the shares over the next few days.'

Kidron stressed however that he was confident that current management would 'execute on this course at a high level.'

According to financial news site Marketwatch, these analysts represented wider Wall Street sentiment, with 95 per cent of analysts rating the shares as a buy.

According to a Los Angeles Times report, Jobs had moved to 'impart his virtual DNA' throughout the company's executive team by founding a secret Apple University led by a prominent academic whose team researched the company's major decisions in an effort to teach Apple's executives to think like him.

'Steve was looking to his legacy. The idea was to take what is unique about Apple and create a forum that can impart that DNA to future generations of Apple employees,' said a former Apple executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve his relationship with the company. 'No other company has a university charged with probing so deeply into the roots of what makes the company so successful.'

Jobs died on Wednesday surrounded by his family after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Though his illness was widely reported, his death shocked the tech world and the millions of people who bought his products. Tributes poured in for Jobs from around the world, from US President Barack Obama down to the millions of admirers who expressed their admiration for Jobs on Twitter, and at spontaneous vigils at hundreds of Apple stores.

Fans also gathered outside Jobs' home in Palo Alto California and outside Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, where they laid apples, flowers and photos in tribute to the tech visionary. Such tributes were repeated worldwide outside Apple stores.

'The guy was a genius and a visionary who was true to himself and his customers. He was an inspiration to us all,' John Walston, 46, told dpa as he paid tribute outside Jobs' house.

Obama called him 'one of the greatest American innovators' and said that 'there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.'

Jobs is credited with a formative influence on personal computers, and was the first to introduce the mouse and point-and-click control system. He also transformed the music industry with Apple's iPod and iTunes, revolutionized the smartphone world with the iPhone and re-molded the personal computer space with the introduction of the hugely popular iPad last year.

One of the most popular posts on Twitter was posted on the #thankyousteve feed. It read: '3 apples changed the world. The one that Eve ate, the one that dropped on Newton's head and the one that Steve built. '